


Court & Spark

by Cunien



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mention of Constance/d'Artagnan, Possible Constance/Athos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunien/pseuds/Cunien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constance feels like she’s full of tinder, a girl all dried out and crackling from twenty-three years of scurried acquiescence and unquestioned duty. And all it will take is one tiny spark to set her aflame. </p><p>**</p><p>Or, how Constance Bonacieux met Athos the Musketeer, and began to live.</p><p>I've been wondering how Constance and Athos met, and why she would contemplate risking her reputation and life for him - how she changed slowly from a dutiful wife to someone wilful, brave and strong.</p><p>I also wanted to see Athos get kicked in the balls, because that's never not funny.</p><p>This could be read as Constance/Athos if that floats your boat. Warnings for mentions of Athos' alcoholism. Slight hurt/comfort. (Constance basically wants to hug Athos, very much)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Constance can’t say exactly when she turned into this other person, but the differences she feels inside now are stark enough for her to worry that others might notice. Well, that’s not really true, she corrects herself. Not a different person. More like...waking up. Waking up and realising, with a jolt, that you’ve been asleep your whole life. It’s a slow process, this waking - a shifting here, a flicker of an eyelid there - but it’s only just begun.

It scares her a little, if she’s honest. She finds herself making rash decisions, the filter between her mind and her mouth sometimes apparently entirely gone and leaving her to say things she would never have dreamt of, before. The fishmonger tries to sell her day-old fish and she calls him a cheat. She will stare boldly back at the gossiping women in church on sunday mornings. Bonacieux will make an inane comment, as he has done regularly for the entirety of their marriage, and Constance will have to bite her lip until it bleeds to stop herself from answering back. 

She feels like she’s full of tinder, a girl all dried out and crackling from twenty-three years of scurried acquiescence and unquestioned duty. And all it will take is one tiny spark to set her aflame. 

*

 _Stupid, so stupid._ Somehow the voice in her head is both Bonacieux and her father, and a wave of hot fury roils up, to join the fug of panic that’s already swirling like smoke inside her.

 _What on earth possessed you,_ comes the voice once more, _to walk through the streets of Paris at this time of night? Oh!_ , and it’s all Bonacieux now, pompous and patronising, _Oh, and not just any streets! No! You had to choose to walk down the darkest streets in the most-_

“Shut up,” Constance mutters under her breath, footsteps quickening as she hurries down the increasingly dark and frightening streets. “Just...shut up.”

It was like a dare, at first, a childish game. Would she really do it? Go out to visit a friend for an evening while her husband was out of town on business, stop and chat and gossip like a proper independent woman, like the women of society who didn’t have to marry or keep up the appearance of respectability if they wanted to stay clothed and fed. The sort of woman who decides to do something on the spur of the moment and need tell no one, a woman truly master of herself, a woman truly free.

Is that me? Constance thinks. But she’s nothing if not practical, and while the desire to do something reckless has crept over her of late like a person standing atop a precipice and overcome with the urge to jump, of course, she’s left with the blunt details of the thing: flinging yourself from the precipice means hitting the ground, at some point, and going out alone means coming back alone. At night. She knows Paris well enough to understand how foolish this is.

And she’s not stupid enough to imagine that the footsteps she’s heard for the past few minutes aren’t following her.

She flicks a hurried glance over her shoulder, sees the patch of roughly man-shaped darkness, some way behind her and stark against the blue of the empty streets.

“Oh you fool,” she whispers, not daring to look around again. “You utter fool.” The panic swells inside of her, pushing down into legs that quiver and shake, and before she knows it she’s running. With a lurch she hears the mirrored footsteps of her follower quicken in answer to her own.

The cobbles are slick with the recent rain and Constance slips and skids as she rounds a corner, scrabbling palms painfully against the crumbled brick wall as she feels her feet slip out from under her with a muffled cry.

She barely has the time to register this development before something slams into her with a hoarse curse, knocking the air from her lungs with a painful lurch. She curls in on herself with a squeak, barely feeling the puddle she’s lying in begin to soak through her dress because the fear is tight and all-consuming and oh God she’s going to die now, isn’t she? 

The weight of the man sprawled across her shifts, all tangled limbs and haze of sour cheap wine, and mumbles something that sounds a bit like “...beg your pardon, mademoiselle.”

He’s trying to extricate himself, rising on what seem like unsteady legs, when Constance - in a sudden moment of clarity - remembers what happened the time their old bay mare had kicked Bonacieux between the legs, hits out viciously with her heel and scuttles on her backside till she feels the unyielding solidity of a shadowy doorway behind her.

She hadn’t kicked as hard as perhaps she could have, but the man goes down once more with a breathless sort of whimper. He’s still between her and escape though, so she sits hugging her knees and glaring, trying to see if she can find her voice to scream, or if, in this part of town, a screaming woman might bring yet more undesirable attention.

“Please…” the man wheezes, his face turning a little green, “...’m a King’s Musketeer...only trying to...ensure you returned home….safely.”

Constance breath comes out in a harsh laugh, “Do you take me for a fool? And it’s _madam_ , not mademoiselle,” she spits, kicking out once more in his direction despite the fact she’s too far away to make contact.

The man lifts up an arm, gloved palm outwards towards her and pulls himself to his feet. Standing there now she can see him properly: he’s tall, perhaps six foot, but there’s a compactness to him that makes him look smaller than his height. The fact that he’s hunched slightly around his groin after Constance’s kick doesn’t help, of course. His hair is brown, long enough to wave just slightly at his collar, beard perhaps a little unkempt as it edges up towards his ears, nothing like the precise lines of Bonacieux’s. A scar quirks through his top lip to his nose, almost but not quite hidden by the moustache. 

There are crinkles around his eyes that would speak of a man much used to smiling, except for the fact that Constance has never seen a person's eyes so full of sadness, a quiet and constant thing that she can tell has been borne long enough to be familiar and bone-deep to the man.

He bends gingerly to pick up a hat with hands that shake, just slightly, and dusts it off. The hat in question, like his coat and boots and breeches, is well cut but practical, nothing showy or ostentatious. There’s a sword and pistol at his hip, and she can glimpse the pommel of a main gauche at his back. A shiver runs through her.

“It’s alright,” he says, edging towards her and offering a hand. His voice is still a little strained with pain. “My name is Athos, of the King’s Musketeers. I promise you no harm will come to you.”

“You don’t look like one,” Constance says, before she can help herself, “A Musketeer, that is.” The whiff of alcohol comes to her again and she crinkles her nose, “You don’t smell like one, either.”

“Do you make a habit of smelling Musketeers, madam?” he asks, deadpan.

Constance blushes and rises to her feet, studiously avoiding his outstretched hand. She keeps her back against the wall warily. “Of course not. But I’m sure one of the King’s Musketeers wouldn’t smell like he’d just attempted to drink an entire tavern.”

 _What are you doing?!_ the voice in Constance’s head says. _Stop talking! Don’t make him angry!_

“Then you cannot know many Musketeers, madam,” the man, Athos, replies with a smile so small and quick Constance almost thinks she imagined it.

“If you’re a Musketeer, where’s your blue cloak, your….pauldron...thing?”

Athos shrugs. “Not with me. There are times when a man wishes to remain...inconspicuous.”

Constance snorts, in a very unladylike way. “Yes. Good job. I hardly noticed you at all,” and she’s surprised by the sarcasm in her voice. _That’s new_ , she thinks, _I rather like it._

”Why were you following me?” she demands, after a moment of eying him warily.

“As I said: I saw you walking alone and thought I would make sure you reached your home without...attracting the attention of anyone unpleasant.”

“Other than yourself, you mean,” Constance says primly, brushing in vain at her ruined dress. She’s suddenly aware that she’s cold, and horribly wet from the puddle of God knows what she’d fallen into.

“Here,” Athos says, noticing her shivering and beginning to unbutton his jacket, but Constance balks at the gesture and draws back into the shadow of the doorway. He raises his palms in supplication again and takes a step back, only then noticing the way she’s holding her hands.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, “You’re bleeding.”

“Am I?” Constance inspects her hands, and notices the ragged tears caused by her attempt to right herself, grabbing at the sharp and crumbled brickwork.

“I know someone who could look at that for you,” Athos says, and then, almost to himself, “If he’s awake. And alone.”

“A fellow soldier?"

Athos nods.

“No thankyou. One dubious Musketeer is quite enough. My _husband_ can help me when I get back.”

“Is it much further to your home?” 

She shakes her head, “Not too far.”

“Then perhaps I might suggest that you walk ahead, and I will follow. At a discreet distance,” he assures.

Constance weighs her options: she could turn down his offer (and there’s no way she can be sure that he won’t follow her, anyway) and run the risk of bumping into someone who’s definitely not a Musketeer. Or she can let him follow at a distance. He’s clearly drunk and possibly a little odd, but she reasons that he probably would have done something already, if he was going to at all. Her husband’s voice in her head whines _but then he’ll know where we live!_ and she can almost hear the affronted curl of the lip he’d give the words. She nods, as if to shake away the voice, and lifts her head proudly.

“Don’t try anything,” she warns the man. 

“I can assure you I will be staying well away from the reach of your kick,” Athos states drily. He wobbles a little as Constance passes him. “Are you sure it’s not you that needs help getting home?” she asks, over her shoulder.

Athos smiles darkly, “Perhaps I am not at my best,” he admits, “But I assure you I am fully capable of escorting you.”

“Hmm,” Constance says, lifting her nose and marching ahead of him, pretending that her heart isn’t beating a wild tattoo of fear, and perhaps, just a little excitement.

*


	2. Chapter 2

Constance walks in silence, and after a few moments begins to realise that the echo of footsteps behind her is an oddly comforting presence. At one point a couple of shadows detach from an alleyway and move towards her, but before Constance's footsteps can even falter, behind her there is the steely hiss of a sword being drawn just slightly from its scabbard, and the shadows melt back into the darkness. She smiles, just a little bit. 

They are only a few streets away from Constance’s home on the Rue de Fossoyeurs, and she's so lost in her own thoughts that she doesn’t notice the quickening of Athos the Musketeer’s steps behind her. There’s a hand on her shoulder that shoves her firmly into the darkness of a small alleyway, and Constance is too shocked to make any noise other than a sharp intake of breath. She turns in outrage in time to see Athos make a small motion in her direction, as if to remain quiet.

He stands in the street, pulling himself up to his full height as five men round the corner onto the street and fan out slowly, edging towards him.

“All alone?” a voice jeers, “ _Athos_?” The man spits the name like it’s a curse, and lets out a harsh bark of laughter that makes Constance wince and draw back further into the shadows.

“So it would seem,” Athos says, and his voice is so dry and calm it astounds her.

“Hur,” another of the men laughs, creeping closer, “ _Ath-os_. That’s the name of a mountain.”

“And yet, it is my name,” Athos says. His tone is calm and even, hand straying only idly towards the sword at his side.

“Where are your friends, Athos?” a man calls. By the way the others are holding back around him Constance is sure he must be the leader of the small group. “Where are the Fop and the Brute?”

As they move slowly towards the Musketeer Constance can make out the dull red and black of their uniforms, and her heart sinks: Red Guards. Everyone knows they’re little better than thugs and criminals themselves.

“My friends have better things to do than fight such poor excuses for men, Cahusac,” Athos smiles, and there’s something cold and glittering in it, like a man who cares nothing for himself. “Though fortunately, I don’t.”

With that Athos launches himself at the guards, and Constance can do nothing but gape. She’s never really seen a proper fight before - scraps and brawls in the street, perhaps, but Bonacieux would always pull her quickly away before she could really see anything. For a while now she’s been aware of this awakening, keening need in her, for adventure, for something, anything to _happen_. And now here it is, and she feels stupid and small and frightened and oh, it’s _wonderful_.

She wants a sword, and a Musketeer's pauldron. She wants to charge out into the street and fight alongside him. They’d win, of course, and then laugh and drink in a tavern, knees knocking together companionably, slumping into each other as the empty bottles on the table grew in number.

She wonders, in that idle sort of way that somehow happens quicksilver fast in the most inappropriate moments, if she might like to kiss a man like Athos, to feel his hands on her, unlacing her stays and pushing her up against a wall in his need. But she realises that it’s not love but loneliness - deep and real and settled like a something curled in the bottom of her stomach - that’s making her feel like this.

And all the while, Athos fights. He’s breathtakingly fast and so skilled with a blade that even Constance can recognise it, but he’s also clearly drunk and outnumbered. There are five of them, against one.

 _Well, not one,_ she thinks, and this time it’s not Bonacieux or her father’s voice in her head, but her own, petulant and small but strong, for all of that. _There are two of us._

Constance casts about herself desperately, looking for a weapon, but there’s nothing in the alleyway but piles of discarded rubbish, a few glass bottles. They are after all only a few streets from the Rue de Fossoyeurs, where _respectable_ people live.

The thought thrums through her like a jolt of heat through her veins. Constance looks across the street, up at the windows of the houses above them. Respectable houses, where respectable people are sleeping, right now. Respectable, law-abiding people. Despite it all, the men fighting just meters away are doing it as quietly as possible, because this is a law-abiding neighbourhood. And dueling is against the law, isn’t it?

Constance picks up a discarded bottle and hurls it, with all her might, against the door opposite. The noise barely registers, but she bends to pick up another and throws it and its unsavoury contents at the freshly painted wall. A blind grope in the darkness of the alleyway yields half a brick, and she winces as her throw sends it smashing straight through the glass of a window across the street. There’s not much else she can reach at this point, so she resorts instead to heaving her shoulder against the half empty and broken barrels in the alley mouth, which shatter and roll out into the street with a noise loud enough to wake the whole arrondissement.

The guards have noticed now - how could they not? - but as two break off to make their way into the alleyway a window opens across the street, and another, and another, where candles are being lit and angry voices calling and cursing as only Parisians woken from their hard-earned slumber can.

The men falter in their steps and look to Cahusac, who shrugs and laughs breathlessly, “Next time, Athos. And bring your friends.” 

The guards run off into the darkness, and Constance is afraid for a moment that Athos’s legs might give out. She darts out of the darkness and pulls him unresisting into the alleyway. “This way,” she leads him, to the other end of the alley where a passage loops around onto the end of the Rue de Fossoyeurs. 

She feels abruptly like a mischievous schoolgirl, and feels the wild happiness burble out of her mouth as laughter. 

“Stop... _giggling_ ,” Athos whispers with distaste, as she pulls him through the back door into her kitchen. “Oh stop complaining, I just saved your wine-soaked hide,” she teases, lighting the candles.

“I did not need saving,” the Musketeer says, faintly outraged. Constance turns to see him standing awkwardly near the door. His hair is sticking up in all directions, his jacket torn, and there’s a smudge of dark blood from the right side of his temple.

“Oh but you’re hurt! You didn’t say!” she says, pulling him into a chair by the fire. He seems too appalled and uncomfortable to offer much resistance. “You men are all the same,” Constance scolds. There’s a bucket of clean water set by the pantry door, and she pours a basin to wash the scrapes on her hands, wrapping them in clean linen before returning to Athos.

“It’s not deep,” she says, dabbing at the cut on his head. “Pommel?”

Athos nods yes, but the look of deep distrust on his face is enough to set her off laughing again. “Calm down brave Musketeer, I’m not going to eat you alive! There, it won’t even need stitches.”

“That’s good,” Athos says, clearing his throat, “My friend likes to think he has a monopoly on stitching our wounds.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, you know,” he says after a while. “Caused that clamour. Drawn attention to yourself. You could have been hurt.”

“Yes,” Constance says, matter-of-factly, “I suppose I could.”

“It was rather funny, though,” Athos replies, and the look of deep seriousness on his face makes her laugh. 

“Thankyou for walking me home,” she says.

“Thankyou for waking half of Paris. Although, I should probably arrest you for disturbing the peace, vandalism -”

“-and yourself, for dueling.”

Athos nods, stately, with just a hint of a smile. 

“I haven’t even told you my name!” she remembers, “How rude of me! It’s Constance. Constance Bonacieux.”

Athos stands, but she can see how his face pales and his hand shoots out to grip the back of the chair to steady himself. 

“Where do you live?” she asks, eyes narrowing.

“Not far from here. Are you going to offer to escort me home?” His voice is light, but Constance knows her husband well enough to know when a man is trying to fob her off.

“And how far will you get, without collapsing?” 

“Oh, at least a few feet I should think.”

“My husband’s not really home,” she blurts, and then blushes scarlet and hopes Athos is too polite to notice what her words could be implying. “I mean, there’s a spare room, for a lodger, but we don’t have one, not since Monsieur Pamphile left and…” Constance trails off, realising she’s rambling.

“When does your husband return?” Athos asks, levelly.

“Tomorrow morning.” Constance tries not to notice the little tremor in her voice. 

“Then I will be gone by morning,” Athos nods. 

Upstairs she brushes absent-mindedly at the mantelpiece, though she knows she dusted it only yesterday. “The linen is clean…” she says stupidly, gesturing to the bed.

The man nods, and Constance is about to leave the room when she notices him trying to unbuckle his sword belt with hands that tremor, more violently now. Athos looks up, and there’s something so ashamed, so naked and open in his face that she feels her heart break, just a little. 

“I’m...it’s just…” 

He clears his throat as the colour touches just slightly at his cheekbones.

Constance has seen it before: the old men who sit huddled on the street corners, usually old soldiers. Their hands quake and tremor, faces pallid and fevered as they hold them out for a few livre to scrape together for another bottle of wine. She is struck suddenly by how young Athos looks, like a little boy, though he’s probably a good few years older than her. There’s something so broken about him that she has to curl her hands into fists and dig her nails into her palms to stop herself from gathering him up in her arms.

“Here,” Constance says, and helps him with the fiddly belt buckle. He lifts his arms and looks awkwardly at the ceiling as she bends to the task. The simple act, her proximity to this man (she can feel his breath ghosting on her bowed forehead) is so intimate, so domestic, that it makes her heart beat hard in her chest. Five years of marriage and she thinks, tonight, this is the closest she has ever been to man.

Bonacieux has never spoken to her like Athos has spoken to her tonight, never looked at her with that measured acknowledgment in his eyes, as though he is seeing her, everything she is and could be.

“My thanks, Madam,” Athos says, and she’s suddenly absurdly grateful for this little attempt at propriety, amidst what has somehow become terribly improper.

He looks as though he’s about to collapse, so Constance moves to the door and smiles, hoping to God that there’s no pity there in it. She leaves him with a nod, closing the door gently behind her, and stands in the cold dark of the corridor until her heartbeat stops thundering in her ears and the urge to cry has passed.

*

Looking back, of course Constance knows that this was the moment the spark caught and flamed up in her insides, bone-dry and waiting. The fire was not so simple as a burning for a man like Athos, but for a life that included people like him - the rush of adrenaline and want and heartache and _living_ , all so utterly new and alien to her.

And that’s the truth of it, she thinks: that living comes with loss so deep she wonders if she’ll ever breathe again, and joy all-encompassing, like being swallowed by the sun. But even now, as she watches D’Artagnan walk coldly away from her and the pain is like a deft knife between her ribs, Constance knows she may come to regret her choices, but not this fire in her, not for one single second.

**


End file.
